There is little left to fight for in the village of Spartak near Donetsk.

Amid reports of fierce battles around the rebel-held city’s airport – now back in separatist hands according to Russian press reports – Spartak is already a scene of desolation.

The remnants of its streets are virtually empty, with homes destroyed and people’s lives and livelihoods in ruins.

Across eastern Ukraine, the tide of the war looks to be turning.

Rebels have gained ground in recent days after weeks in which they had appeared to be on the verge of collapse while government forces besieged them in Donetsk and Luhansk.

Ukraine’s authorities are now reinforcing the major port of Mariupol, the next big city in the path of the rebel advance.

Whenever a ceasefire does come, for the children of Spartak whose school has been reduced to rubble, and the more than 2,600 people whose lives have been lost in this conflict – a Russian press photographer is among the latest reported dead – it will be too little too late.